A DEA APPROACH FOR EVALUATION OF OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY: CASE STUDY OF A LOGISTICS FIRM

Cost minimisation is one of the key challenges faced by logistic industries across the world. As the number of customers increases, it becomes absolutely essential to make maximum utilisation of the existing resources to ensure quality customer service. The huge amount of data available with the firm under study is analysed using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and turned into valuable insights that could be used by management in taking right informed decision. The results show that about half of the transporters have efficiency value less than the average, indicating a huge scope for improvement. Related suggestions for efficiency improvement using DEA slack results are also presented. The decision making units (DMU) that are considered are the individual trucks. The findings of the study provide useful insights to the management in decision making at all the three levels, viz. operational, tactical and strategic.